Principles of Community Engagement (Second Edition)

B. How do you engage a state as a community?
Geri Dino, PhD, Elizabeth Prendergast, MS, Valerie Frey-McClung, MS, Bruce
Adkins, PA, Kimberly Horn, EdD
Challenge
West Virginia is the second most rural state in the U S with a population
density of just 75 persons per square mile The state consistently has one of
the worst health profiles in the nation, including a disproportionably high
burden of risk factors for chronic disease The most notable is tobacco use
(Trust for America’s Health, 2008) Addressing these chronic disease risk
disparities was central to West Virginia University’s application to become a
CDC-funded PRC Early in the application process, senior leadership from the
university engaged the state’s public health and education partners to create
a vision for the PRC Both then and now, the PRC’s state and community
partners view West Virginia as having a culture of cooperation and service
that embraces the opportunity to solve problems collectively The vision that
emerged, which continues to this day, reflected both the state’s need and
a sense of shared purpose — the entire state of West Virginia would serve
as the Center’s target community Importantly, the academic-state partners
committed themselves to develop the PRC as the state leader in prevention
research by transforming public health policy and practice through collaborative
research and evaluation In addition, partners identified tobacco use
as the top research priority for the PRC These decisions became pivotal for
the newly established Center and began a 15-year history of academic-state
partnerships in tobacco control
Action Steps
Several critical actions were taken First, in 1995, West Virginia had the highest
rate of teen smoking in the nation, and thus the academic-state partners
determined that smoking cessation among teens would be the focus of the
Center’s core research project Second, faculty were hired to work specifically
on state-driven initiatives in tobacco research Third, PRC funds were
set aside to conduct tobacco-related pilot research using community-based
participatory approaches Fourth, state partners invited Center faculty to
tobacco control meetings; the faculty were encouraged to provide guidance
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